Let's pray. Lord Jesus and Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this opportunity to gather in your house and to open your word. Please be with us now as we study your word to be able to understand it, apply it to our lives, and also to share it with others so they can come in and know you as their Lord and Savior. Thank you so much for the opportunity. As we pray in Jesus' precious holy name, amen. Bible study from A to Z, we're in the word benediction. The Bible dictionary I have defines benediction as a prayer that God may bestow certain blessings on His people. It can be to a group, it can be to an individual, or it can be to the entire nation or the entire Christendom, you might say. And we see this all through the Scriptures, the verses that we have in our book that we're using as our guide through this, starts in Genesis, of course, like everything starts in Genesis. If you will, turn to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 22. Now here we see it's not a prayer from someone, from a pastor, from an individual, but it is still a blessing which would fall under the definition of a benediction, and it's kind of a conclusion to an event of the creation itself of man, as we see in Genesis chapter 1, verses 22 through 28. It reads, And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth. and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. So the Lord blessed man and animal in the book of Genesis. So we see the first benediction there. Now, turn on over to Genesis chapter 9. We see here, after the great flood, after the judgment of God coming upon this planet, flooding this entire planet, destroying it, all the land creatures, all the fowl of the air, everything that was air-breathing, that was on the land and flying in the air, except for those that were on the ark. Those eight people, Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives, and all those animals that the Lord called in to be on that ark. And in Genesis chapter 9, we see here at the conclusion of the flood and as they're coming out or being told to come on out and to replenish the earth, as it says in Genesis chapter 9, let's pick it up, verse 1. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Once again, a blessing to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, and to your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things, but flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat? And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man, and you Be ye fruitful, and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth. and I will establish my covenant with you. Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood, neither shall there be any more, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is a token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth." So He blesses them and He promises them all in this one section here. He lets them know their power, He lets them know some authority, dominion, sets some rules and blesses them. Tells them to be fruitful and multiply, tells them they can eat basically anything that creeps or crawls or walks, that all flesh, except for the flesh of man, then one requirement was that you couldn't eat it with the blood in it, because the blood is sacred. And he goes on to put the bow, the rainbow, That blessing that we have every time we look up and see a rainbow, knowing the promise of God that He will no longer or never again destroy the entire planet with water or cover the entire planet with a flood to judge man. So it's awesome when you see that. Some scholars have said you can see prophecies within the colors of the rainbow themselves. When you look up, you see the rainbow. At the top of the rainbow, you see the red. In the middle of it, you see the yellow. And along the bottom, you see the blues. And then you have the blending of the colors all in between of these. And the red is prophesied to be a warning of what is to come. The yellow and what's in between is the grace period that we are in now. And the blue along the bottom is the remembrance of the flood that covered the entire planet. So when we see the red, we know the prophecy of the last days, we'll destroy the planet by fire. So we can see the promises that He will not flood us, the reminder there in the rainbow. Know that we're in the grace period right now, but one day the red is going to hit us, which is the whole planet will be melted away in fervent heat, as it says in the writings of Peter. Even the elements themselves will melt away. So we have that blessing from the Lord that we get reminded of every time that we see a rainbow, knowing what we have to come and knowing what has been done in the past and the promises that He makes. All right, now turn on over to Genesis chapter 14. Here we see a very interesting and curious encounter with a priest. The priest is Melchizedek, the king of Salem, which Salem is actually the previous name of Jerusalem. And here in Genesis 14, just two verses here, 18 through 20. Now this is occurring as Abraham has already been given the orders to go to the Promised Land. He's already split up with Lot. Lot has went and camped outside of Saddam, Sodom and Gomorrah, and he has been taken captive by a king, and Abraham has went and retrieved Lot and all of his possessions, brought him back to Sodom and Gomorrah there. And in his journeys, he encounters Melchizedek. In verse 18, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High God. Note that he is a priest of the Most High God. And this is occurring before Moses even received the orders of the priesthood for the Levitical priest that was given to Moses on Mount Sinai quite some time after this event here. But already you have a relationship of a man being called a priest of God in Salem. thus showing us there was a lot of communication to those that were beyond the bloodline of Abraham and his descendants. That Melchizedek was already designated as a priest of God prior to the rules, regulations, and ordinances given to Moses in the Mosaic writings of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But here we see Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram, which is also known as Abraham, of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. So this is the priest of Salem blessing Abram. Note what Abram does. "'And blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand, and he gave him tithes of all.'" So Abram gave tithes to Melchizedek. So here we have Abraham paying tithes prior to Moses even receiving the ordinance of tithing that you see him receive during the Exodus. Quite curious when you see bits and pieces of clues of the communication of the knowledge and understanding of the priesthood that go all the way back way before Moses. A lot of theoretical teaching concerning that. But we are not going to get into all that tonight. So let's go on to Genesis chapter 24. And here we see a blessing that's given to Rebekah. Now, Rebecca is the one that is chosen to be the wife of Isaac, which is the promised son of Abraham and Sarah. They've sent out a messenger to go present an offering, you might say, to Rebekah and her family and a blessing that comes along with that is why we have this under the category of benediction. So in Genesis chapter 24, we pick it up in verse 58 here, as you see them, the messengers that were sent to him from Abraham in the behalf of Isaac, And it reads in 58, And they called Rebekah and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And the man was the servant that was sent to fetch Rebekah to bring her back to Abraham and Isaac so that Isaac could marry Rebekah. And she said, I will go. And they sent away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men, and they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them. So we have that blessing being given to Rebecca by her family as she departs to go be the wife of Isaac, who becomes the mother of Jacob and Esau. And Jacob gets his name changed to Israel. So she is a very important part in the family tree of Israel. All right, now go on over to the book of Numbers. In Numbers chapter 6, verses 22 through 27, we have a priestly blessing or benediction. It reads, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them. So this blessing is instructed by the Lord to Moses to Aaron. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his confidence upon thee and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Now, verses 24 through 26 here are used quite often at funerals. You may have heard these many times, where they'll finish up the funeral, a lot of times at the graveside. This will be one of the last things they'll read or say, it's the benediction prayer. And the part of it is, The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. And then they close. So that's where they get that here. This is a blessing that was given from the Lord to Moses to Aaron to bless the children of Israel during their exodus right before going into their last little journey there before going into the Promised Land. Alright, now over in Deuteronomy chapter 10, we have a brief one here in chapter 10 verse 8. It reads, At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister unto Him, and to bless in His name unto His day. and to this day. So this is the point in the timeline that the children of Israel have been designated, or I should say the tribe of Levi within the children of Israel have been designated as those to keep the ordinances, the statutes of the priesthood and also to be doing the blessing of the people for the Lord. Alright, now go over to Deuteronomy chapter 33. Deuteronomy chapter 33, basically the whole chapter is a benediction prayer of Moses for the tribes of Israel. So let's read on through this. We might finish up our time, but let's see how it goes. In Deuteronomy chapter 33, here we see an awesome benediction prayer of Moses to the tribes of Israel. Of course, right here is shortly before his death, because he's not permitted to go into the Promised Land, and they are at the brink of going across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. So here we have his prayer in Deuteronomy chapter 33, and this is the blessing, wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death. And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them. He shined forth from Mount Purim, and He came with ten thousands of saints from His right hand, and went a fiery law for them. He loved the people, all his saints are in his hand, and they sat down at thy feet, every one shall receive of thy words. Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob, and he was king in Jerusalem, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together. Let Reuben live and not die, and let not his men be few." And this is the blessing of Judah. He said, "'Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him to his people. Let his hands be sufficient for him, and be thou a help to him from his enemies.' And of Levi, he said, "'Let thy Thuram and thy Urim be with thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove at Massae, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah. Who saith unto his father, and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children, for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, And Israel, thy law, they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon that altar. Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept the work of his hands. Smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again. And of Benjamin he said, the beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him, and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders. And of Joseph he said, blessed of the Lord be his land for the precious things of heaven, for the dew and for the deep that crouches beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon. and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and fullness thereof, and for the goodwill of him that dwelt in the blush. In the bush, let the blessings come upon the head of Joseph and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns. With them he shall push the people together in the ends of the earth, and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh. And of Zebalun, he said, Rejoice, Zebalun, in thy going out, and Issachar in thy tents. They shall call the people unto the mountain, there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness, for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand. And of Gad, he said, Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad, he dwelleth as a lion, teareth the arm with the crown of the head. And he provided the first part for himself, because there is a portion of the lawgiver. Was he seated and he came with the heads of the people, he executed the justice of the Lord and his judgments with Israel. And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion's whelp, he shall leap from Bashan. And of Nephthalia he said, O Nephthalia, satisfied with favor, and full with the blessings of the Lord, possess thou the West and the South. And of Asher, he said, let Asher be blessed with children, let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who writeth upon the heaven in thy help and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, Destroy them. Israel then shall dwell in safety alone. The fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine. Also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel, who is likened to thee. O people saved by the Lord, and the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency. and thine enemies shall be found liars upon thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places." Thus the blessing of Moses given to the tribes of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 33. Alright, we've got time for another one here. Over in the book of Ruth, we see a brief one here where Ruth is getting a blessing in Ruth chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. And Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, Go return each to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead and with me. Of course, this blessing is going out to these two young ladies because both of their husbands had recently passed away and Naomi was their mother-in-law. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband.' Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and wept." So she gave them that blessing. Of course, we know the account where the one daughter goes ahead and leaves Naomi, but Ruth swears an oath of allegiance to Naomi and sticks with Naomi. But let's wrap it up with that one right there and then we'll hit benediction again next week. But there we see examples in the Old Testament. We've got one more in the Old Testament in Psalm 67 verses 1 through 7, which is the whole psalm. We'll cover next time and then it gets in on to the New Testament and see some benediction examples in the New Testament. But now when you hear that word, benediction, you know it's a prayer that God may bestow certain blessings on His people or on an individual. But let's close with prayer now. Lord Jesus and Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. No matter how long it's been written, it still applies to us today. Help us to realize that. Encourage us to dig deep into the scriptures to find the encouragement that we need to grow closer to you through the study. Keep us hungry to do that very thing and eager to share it with others as well. always let everything that we do bring honor and glory to you and help us to grow in the direction you want us to grow and be able to help others come to know you as their Lord and Savior before it may be everlasting too late. We thank you so much. May God direct us this week as we pray in Jesus' precious holy name. Amen.